Dire news on climate change suggests that Western US and particularly the Yellowstone basin are already in the grip of a warming trend, and warming quicker than the rest of the continental US.
The demise of the whitebark pine trees is the most noticeable result of climate change. Warming temperatures have allowed the mountain pine beetle to thrive in previously inhospitable, high-elevation whitebark forests turning the mountains in every direction brown. Aerial surveys have established that whitebark pine die-offs are approaching a staggering 85 percent. A recent study concludes that climate-induced beetle kill will render the pine species functionally dead in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem within the next seven to 10 years.
-via the Bozeman Daily Chronicle
As the Whitebark Pine offers precious cover to delay snow melt, it suggests that Spring runoff will be quicker and potentially much more violent, and summer flows smaller and warmer than those of the past.
Studies indicate that within the next 50 years the Yellowstone River between Livingston and Laurel-one of the world’s great trout streams-will likely become a warm-water fishery.
So B.A.S.S. can add both Lake Tahoe and the Yellowstone River to their ever-increasing list of exotic venues.
The National Park Service has released a 36 page response to the impacts of climate change to the national inventory of parklands. As you might expect it is a roadmap to handle the effects and adaptations anticipated, as they cannot stop the process by any means. As part of the issue is carbon sequestration on park lands, I’d imagine that it’ll require vendors and visitors to adjust to a lower carbon footprint (possibly affecting their ability to enter the park, or the means by which they’ll be allowed access), and the end to livestock grazing – as it’s a known source of gases.
(… rivaled only by fly fishing blogs and their authors … )
Better buy ’em fast; word is they’re being discontinued.
And driving through Montana this summer was revealing; at times I was confronted with shocking expanses of dead pines, and your 85% figure was borne out (at least in a few locations).
Very soon, the west is going to burn…
While there is still time, let us look upon the bright side. The tasty and prolific Asian Carp waits eagerly to fill up those depleted river systems, and we can toss out all that expensive, complicated and overrated trout gear (which might fetch a fair price on “Antiques Road Show”) along with that bothersome “catch and release” elitism. Limits will be raised beyond wildest dreams of avarice, and with the return of the manly era of BOONE & CROCKETT overkill and excess, our children may abandon their sofas and video games and return eagerly to the wilds ! Not so sure about that last, but you sports will get the general idea…
Yomama,
That’s the first bit of good cheer I’ve heard in a long time. All an angler really wants is something tugging his offering, as it gives him the excuse to be out-of-doors and active.
All the rest of it is the trappings of sophistication and elegance, which a real sportsman is sworn to ignore. Anyone thinking trout are any better than Carp is going to wipe the mouth of your jug before taking a draught – and may not be fit companionship anyways.
Poppycock. Can an American say that? I’m not sure, but I did anyway. Here in the east it’s colder than normal. Next week, when temps should still be in the 60 degree range(F) the highs are forcast for the low to mid 30’s. With snow. In December! Not unheard of, but most of our winter weather(snow, ice, sleet) comes in late March and early April. All this global warming hysteria has done one thing though – it’s warmed the pockets of many a huge corporation hell-bent on shoving “green” everything down our throats. You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m a global warming agnostic. ( btw – dead trees usually mean an invasive insect, not some global heat wave.)
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